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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24292819">back to waking</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/PetrichorIllusions/pseuds/PetrichorIllusions'>PetrichorIllusions</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Kaleidotrope (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Depressive Episode, Drew might not call it that but this is a big ole projection fic, Hurt/Comfort, Natural cameo from Hal because literally what else do you expect of me, Other, i guess</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:15:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,100</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24292819</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/PetrichorIllusions/pseuds/PetrichorIllusions</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Drew hasn’t been sleeping.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Drew/Harrison</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>44</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>back to waking</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hey, this fic is essentially about Drew working his way out of a depressive episode. There’s nothing graphic, but if that kind of thing might be difficult for you to read please look after yourself &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Drew hasn’t been sleeping. </p><p>Harrison knows it, even if Drew himself won’t say it out loud. He’ll go to bed with him, sure, but he’s always up before Harrison wakes, and always there to soothe Harrison back to sleep when he wakes in the middle of the night. </p><p>Last time Harrison had tried to talk to him about it, he’d shut the conversation down, diverting it until it was almost an argument. Harrison hasn’t tried again since. </p><p>So they don’t talk about it, and Harrison watches the circles under Drew’s eyes grow darker, his footsteps grow heavier. He makes bigger meals, so Drew always has leftovers, and quietly takes over most of the chores. Drew doesn’t say anything, but he squeezes Harrison’s hand, and smiles a smile that Harrison doesn’t recognise down at the Tupperware. </p><p> </p><p>Harrison texts Hal, eventually, when nothing he does seems to make anything better, and a few days later he comes home to her voice low in the living room. He calls out a hello, but leaves them to it, cooking a dinner that will keep until they venture out. (He does peek around the door when he thinks he can get away with it. They’re both lying on the floor, Drew’s head in Hal’s lap. Drew is facing away, but Hal meets his eyes. She nods, once, and Harrison slumps in relief. He leaves them to it, making himself scarce upstairs when he’s done cooking. </p><p>It’s a long time before Hal leaves, but eventually Harrison hears the front door click closed. He hears Drew’s footsteps on the stairs, but he doesn’t come into the bedroom. Harrison waits, and waits, and when he doesn’t hear anything else he heads out in search of him. It doesn’t take long. He’s standing on the landing, face blank, as if there’s some invisible barrier between him and the room. His eyes lift up, and Harrison goes to him. He doesn’t touch him, but his hand hovers at the side of Drew’s face until he leans into it. Harrison strokes across his cheek, smoothing away at the dark circles, and the tension slips out of Drew with every touch. </p><p>“Thank you,” He says, hushed, eventually. “For still being here.” Harrison pulls him into his arms, holding him tight before replying. </p><p>“I’m always going to still be here.” Drew’s body shakes underneath him. </p><p>“Always,” he repeats. “Okay? He keeps it up, whispering reassurances to Drew until he settles. He pulls him gently into bed when he has, wrapping himself back round him. </p><p>For the first time in weeks, Drew falls asleep in his arms. </p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>Harrison wouldn’t go so far as to call it a breakthrough, but it’s the first in a series of turning points. </p><p>Some are small; Drew picking up groceries on his way home again, Drew picking up a magazine and actually reading it, instead of gazing at it blankly until giving up. </p><p>Some seem bigger: Harrison comes home one day, mid-afternoon, to find Drew fast asleep on the couch, so out of it that he doesn’t even stir when Harrison drapes a blanket over him. </p><p>Another day, all the clutter disappears from Drew’s desk, the wood suddenly visible again instead of the cluttered papers and unopened mail. </p><p>A morning when Harrison wakes up to find Drew still cuddled up to him, and then another morning, and another.</p><p> </p><p>The first day when Harrison finally wakes up before Drew again is a Saturday. It’s been so long since it last happened that Harrison barely dares move. Instead, he watches his profile as the light changes around them. The bags under Drew’s eyes haven't gone anywhere, though they seem fainter in the grey light. He thinks his cheeks look more gaunt than they did a few months ago, but maybe it’s the layer of stubble creating an illusion. There’s a frown line gathering on his forehead, as if he’s dreaming, and it isn’t all too surprising when his whole body suddenly goes rigid, and his eyes snap open. </p><p>He doesn’t look to Harrison right away, and Harrison thinks to himself that it’s telling about how long this has been going on. By the time Drew does look, his breathing has evened back out, body back to relaxed - or maybe just trying hard to pretend to be. </p><p>“Nightmare?” Harrison whispers, reaching a hand up to brush Drew’s hair away from his eyes. Drew doesn’t reply, but he nods, and tries to burrow in closer. Harrison shifts to let him, pulling Drew half on top of himself so he can wrap his arms around him properly. </p><p> </p><p>To both of their surprise, Drew falls back to sleep. Harrison drifts into a doze as well, though part of him stays focussed on Drew. When they both come back to waking, there’s barely any of the morning left. Harrison suggests breakfast, but Drew’s kiss to his shoulder turns into a kiss below his jaw, turns into an impressive array of hickies spanning Harrison’s chest, and no breakfast until well after lunchtime has begun. </p><p>Harrison can’t say he has any complaints. </p><p>Well, not until later, when he begins to wonder whether Drew hadn’t had an ulterior motive in ending any discussion of the nightmares before it began. </p><p> </p><p>He spends the day trying to think of a way to broach the subject. </p><p>“What can I do to help, Drew?” He settles on in the end, a soft question as the sun is setting. </p><p>“What?” Drew asks, and Harrison knows he’s pretending not to know what he’s talking about, would know it by the waver in his voice even if he hadn’t heard Drew’s heart rate pick up against him. </p><p>“I know you don’t want to talk about it, but if there’s anything I can do, you know I’ll do it.”</p><p>“If I thought you could do anything, I’d already have said.” Drew is fighting to keep his voice gentle, to soften his words, but there’s an edge that comes through all the same. </p><p>“I hate not being able to help you,”</p><p>“I hate <em> being </em> like this!” All gentleness is gone from Drew’s voice, and he sits up, pulling away from Harrison. “I hate that you have to fucking deal with me when I’m like this, I hate that you have to look after me like I’m a goddamn child who can’t do anything for myself, and I hate that no matter how much I hate it it’s not enough to cut through, and my brain is like it’s covered by a fish bowl and everything that can’t get through is just piling up outside and if I ever get myself out of this it’s just going to collapse in on top of me, so I can’t get out and it’s like my brain is just <em> inaccessible, </em> and I <em> hate </em> it.”</p><p>He stops, short of breath, and a sob wracks through his body. He scrubs the tears that dare to fill away from his cheeks roughly. He’s too angry to be embarrassed, and when he turns back to Harrison he looks defiant. </p><p>Harrison doesn’t say anything, just opens his arms to him. A shudder of want goes through his body, but he keeps himself still, not daring to accept the comfort on offer. There he stays, stubborn, until Harrison drops his arms back to the sofa, trying to smooth the hurt off his face. He’s familiar enough with Drew’s self-sabotage by now that the sting of it is lessened, but he won’t pretend he doesn’t feel it. </p><p>“I know you’re trying,” He says instead, quiet enough that it could just be to himself. “That’s why I don’t mind. I know you don’t want to be like this, and that you’d be doing stuff if you could. And that you’ll do stuff again when you can.”</p><p>Drew’s jaw works. </p><p>“What if it doesn’t get better.” He forces the words out, and Harrison, stricken, doesn’t wait for him this time, grabbing his hands, pressing in close. </p><p>“It will. It will, sweetheart, it always does. You know it always does.”</p><p>“But what <em> if?</em>” </p><p>And that’s it, the crux of the matter. Saying out loud pulls at something inside Drew, and it’s like a knot inside him has untied. His breath comes shallower for a moment, just thinking of it, and then suddenly the tears are there, and he buries his face into Harrison’s shoulder and sobs. </p><p> </p><p>He knows Harrison’s arms are around him, that Harrison is whispering to him gently, but it’s nothing he’s consciously aware of. It’s too much, it’s all too much, and it’s been held in for far too long. </p><p> </p><p>One by one, the sobs flee him, until he’s empty, gasping breaths against Harrison’s shoulder. Harrison’s arms still cradle him, his grip far stronger than you’d expect to look at him. The soft words he’s whispering are at odds with the fierceness of the kisses he presses to Drew’s hair, knowing this fear won’t be combated by gentleness alone. </p><p>“It might not get better.” He says once Drew’s breathing has slowed, and feels him stiffen underneath him once again. “It might not. It probably will. But if it doesn’t, it will at least get easier to manage. We’ll find ways to work with it. Or to work around it. I’m worried about <em> you, </em> Drew, but I’m not worried about our future. What we’ll do. We’ll be okay.”</p><p>He isn’t sure Drew is convinced, but that’s okay. He’ll say it as many times as he needs to until it sinks in. </p><p>“I’m just so <em> tired.</em>” Drew says, voice small. </p><p>“I know, sweetheart, I know.”</p><p>His body shakes, face still pressed into Harrison’s shoulder, but his breathing begins, slowly, to even out. </p><p>He wipes at his eyes before he looks up, and Harrison thumbs away another tear when he does. Their eyes meet, but neither of them speak, Drew letting the warmth in Harrison’s gaze loosen the knots in his chest. They won’t go away just like that, he knows, but Harrison’s eyes help. The day they’ve spent together, too, it lightens the constriction he’s been carrying around with him. He takes Harrison’s hand, presses it to his chest where the weight is heaviest. He doesn’t know how to explain his hope that Harrison will smooth all the tension away, but Harrison doesn’t ask with anything other than his eyes, just rubbing a thumb gently across Drew’s chest. </p><p> </p><p>The evening draws out with them sat like that, and somehow, everything is just a little bit better. </p><p> </p><p>Drew doesn’t explain the gesture, but Harrison had felt the significance of it. He repeats it often throughout the weeks that follow - wrapping his arms around him from behind as he cooks, using it as his anchor point when he reaches up on tiptoes to kiss Drew’s cheek, tracing patterns there before they fall asleep. He sees Drew’s shoulders sag a little bit closer to relaxed every time he does it. </p><p> </p><p>And as the weeks go by, the knots unspool. It’s slow, so slow Drew himself doesn’t even spot it until another one releases entirely. A week goes by that isn’t too bad, and he doesn’t notice when he first goes a day without thinking about it. He doesn’t notice the second day, either, but mid-afternoon on the third day, when he’s doing nothing in particular, it hits him. There’s a warmth that blooms in his stomach, and he finds he’s grinning. He takes a moment to breathe it in, then goes to find Harrison, twining his arms around him from behind and kissing behind his ear. </p><p>“Hi,” Harrison says, and twists in Drew’s arms to face him. Drew kisses him on the lips, too, or at least as much as he can whilst smiling this much. </p><p>“I’m happy,” he tells him, barely moving his mouth away from Harrison’s, and Harrison pulls back to beam at him in response. “I’m happy,” he repeats, wondrous, delighted, unspeakably relieved. </p><p>He can feel the relief in Harrison as well, and he kisses him again in gratitude for the past few months, reaching around him to turn the stove off. </p><p>They kiss again, and again, and then pull back again, Harrison burying his face into Drew’s neck instead, smiling enough that Drew can feel it. </p><p>“I’m glad, Drew. I’m so glad.”</p><p> </p><p>It might not last, Drew knows, but doesn’t say. It might not even last out the day. But each moment of happiness attracts more such moments, and each makes the road ahead a little easier. And here, now, with Harrison in his arms? It’s happiness, and it’s hope, and he finally knows: everything is going to be okay. </p><p> </p>
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